Inter House Unity
by PuppyDogEyes
Summary: After Voldemort's defeat, the Ministry has decided to get the Hogwarts students to get along with each other by a competition with students from all four houses that is bound to go off without a hitch, or so they think. Hilarity ensues.
1. Advice From Albus

Prologue: Advice from Albus

Not for the first time, Minerva McGonagall, seventy-four years young and headmistress to boot, was falling victim to a strong feeling of impending doom. In all her years at Hogwarts, she had dealt with many an emergency, and mostly considered herself quite levelheaded, but she (and not for lack of trying) could not comprehend the ridiculousness of what the Minister of Magic was asking her to instate.

'It's only for this month,' he reasoned, 'and not every student will participate, you know, it's really a small fraction of the entire'-

'I don't care how many students it involves!' Surely Rufus Scrimgeour, her old accomplice, was under some sort of enchantment; after all that had happened in the past year, there was no way he could suggest this- this absurdity! 'What the parents will say, you have no inkling.'

'I have already spoken with a quite large number of parents on this very same issue,' said Rufus, with a tone of explaining the simplest of matters to the simplest of people, 'and they are nothing but supportive. Now, Minerva, just take the papers and mull it over, please. I have other matters to attend to with far more importance than this.'

'I am sure,' she said, trying not to let an undertone of sarcasm enter her voice. It's not as if there were dark wizards to hunt; no, they had left that to the teen-agers.

'Yes,' said the Minister absently, glancing shiftily at the portrait in the corner of the room of a familiar old wizard with a long white beard, who seemed to be sleeping, although his eyeballs were twitching suspiciously behind his half-moon glasses. 'Well- it's been a pleasure, Minerva, a real delight. Hope to see you sometime soon.' With that, he Dissaparated.

'Not too soon, I hope,' said Minerva bitterly, who glanced at the stack of papers she had just been handed. Would she sleep tonight?

Sighing, the headmistress sized up the large pile of paperwork. A good two hours, at least, it would take her to sort out this mess.

'If I may be of assistance,' said a voice from across the room.

Looking up, Professor McGonagall discovered that the portrait of the old wizard was gazing at her with a bemused expression on his ancient, lined face. 'Albus,' she said. 'I thought you were-'

'I may have dozed off,' the wizard called Albus said promptly, 'But only for a minute. I did, unfortunately, miss most of your conversation with the Minister. If you would care to enlighten?'

'I fear I may be too embarrassed to tell you,' Minerva said, hating the Minister, the Ministry, the world.

'Ah, so Rufus is instigating changes in schooling? That is quite an irritating habit of his colleagues,' Albus mused, almost to himself, his eyes in the upper-right corner of his frame.

'Yes, well, wait until you get the gist of this one!' Minerva's eyes were blazing, her skin flushed. 'Some cock-and-bull plan for Inter-House unity! As if we need Slytherins getting cozy with Gryffindors, not after-' She paused, looking at Albus with fear in her gaze. 'Well, anyway, he wants a select group of students- four from each house, incidentally, and they are supposed to 'live in cohabitation' for a month, whatever that means, and do teamwork exercises, and it's all this big competition, and the winner gets one thousand Galleons!' Minerva paused to gulp for air, she had said all this very fast. 'And- and it's just ridiculous, I know you'll agree, don't understand why he's even bothered to come and…Why are you looking like that?' For she had noticed that the man in the frame, blue eyes twinkling, was smiling. 'Stop it, it's not funny!'

'Oh, no, Minerva, I wouldn't dare say it was funny,' said Albus, 'Not in the slightest.'

'Then why are you smiling?' This man confused her, he often did before his death, and he did even more now.

'Only because you are exactly as you were over sixty years ago when I tried to teach you Transfiguration,' said Albus, his countenance hazy with reminiscence. 'Stubborn as an ox, you are, never let yourself look at anything with an open mind. I fear you have distrusted the Ministry so much that it has turned into habit, whether willingly or not I do not know.'

'So,' said Minerva, beginning to catch the ex-headmaster's point, 'you're saying that you approve of this?'

'I'm not saying anything,' he said purposefully, steepling his fingers and closing his eyes. 'It is much too late for that, and some of us have paperwork to do.'

'Have it your way, then,' McGonagall said, pulling the tower of impossibly boring paperwork toward her. It was incredible how much power this man, this man who had taught her as a fourteen-year-old girl, was able to enforce without enforcing anything at all.

She couldn't help thinking, though, how interesting it would be to see how things panned out, really. It was bound to be interesting, wasn't it, the brave, the clever, the cunning, and the loyal, all living in the same house. Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, together as the founders had intended. Who knows, it might, just might, even work.


	2. Dismal Prospects, High Hopes

Chapter Two

'Hey, Harry, Ron!' The drowsy silence in the seventh year boys' dormitory was disrupted by a teen-aged girl's excited shouts. 'Guess what?'

'Merlin, Ginny!' said Ron, whose ears had turned bright red. He hastily shoved a magazine that looked distinctly inappropriate underneath his four-poster bed. 'How can you just burst in on us like that?'

'Ha, Ron, remember,' said Harry, putting a tone of mockery in his voice, 'Girls are more trustworthy than boys, Hermione said.'

'Exactly,' said Ginny, planting a kiss on Harry's lips, causing Ron to get a rather strangled look on his face. 'Now, without further interruption, I have something to tell you.'

' 'Without further interruption',' scoffed Ron. 'You'd think you two were being forced.'

'Well, I thought I smelled a bit of love potion at breakfast…' teased Harry, and Ginny giggled.

'Oh, please,' said a voice from the corner. 'You two are revolting sometimes, honestly.'

'Hermione!' Ginny exclaimed, 'You came in at just the right moment, I was about to tell them!' Hermione looked confused for a fraction of a second, but it must have been a trick of the light, for she immediately spoke in a very bright, very rehearsed- sounding voice.

'Oh, really, Ginny, really? Oh, this is so exciting!' Hermione grinned, and the two girls squealed and hugged each other.

'What are you two going on about?' Ron questioned. It was amazing how he had lived with his sister sixteen years, and he had known Hermione for seven, and yet they still managed to utterly confuse him so very often.

'Ron, haven't you heard?' Hermione asked incredulously. Her eyes grew wide; Ginny imitated her.

'Heard what?' Harry said suspiciously. He hadn't defeated the darkest wizard in a century with pure luck; he could detect a conspiracy from a mile away. Plus, it wasn't unhelpful that it was his girlfriend and best friend who were doing the hoodwinking; he prided himself in thinking that he understood them well enough by now, having known them since he was eleven.

'Well,' said Ginny, advancing on Harry and smiling mischievously, 'Picture this: You, Ron, Hermione, and I all staying in Hogsmeade for a month.'

'Sounds incredible,' said Harry. 'But how'd we get your mum to agree?'

'It's not like I'd let you two stay in the same room!' cried Ron, outraged. Ginny responded to Harry, completely ignoring Ron.

'What if it was school-sponsored?' said Ginny, noticing that she had piqued both Ron's and Harry's interests, if Ron's were unwillingly so.

'Yeah, like that'd ever happen,' Harry said, although his emerald eyes began to get an excited gleam, as they had been so many times before, although this time it was not because of impending danger of the sort caused by Dark Magic. His mind began racing into overdrive, conjuring images of himself and Ginny having frivolous snog sessions with no risk of teachers bursting in, games of Quidditch with Ron, and no more nagging about homework from Hermione. Didn't he deserve that, he thought angrily, of course he did, he had spent his summer fighting Voldemort, hadn't he? He deserved a bit of fun. A break.

'Oh, I can see it now,' Ron snorted. 'I'm sure McGonagall's up in the Great Hall right now, telling everyone how we're all just dropping school for a month.'

'Actually,' said Hermione, grinning, 'that's exactly what's happening. Now, come on, we don't want to be late, I think it's just been started.'

'What's just been started?' asked Harry to Ginny; Ron and Hermione had already sped ahead of both of them, Hermione gripping Ron's elbow.

'McGonagall's explaining it all; I think.' Ginny jumped on the banister and slid all the way down, giggling and screaming, Harry followed, though more quietly. Due to his weight, he crashed into Ginny at the bottom of the banister, and they landed on top of each other on the ground, laughing and wincing. At that moment, Dean Thomas came through the portrait hole and spotted them.

'Oh, get a room,' he said exasperatedly, with a bitter look on his face.

'Dean, you're as sour as a lemon, aren't you?' Ginny said, getting to her feet and drawing herself to her full height.

'Come on, Ginny,' said Harry, 'Let's go downstairs-' He did not want a fight with Dean, who he had always got on very well with.

'All right, fine then.' Ginny glared at Dean furiously, then clambered on out of the portrait hole. 'Just because he hasn't got a snog since I ditched him last year…' she muttered.

It was a very strange feeling they got upon entering the great hall, for the fourteen other people sitting there were all staring at them, as if they had been waiting for them for quite some time, and were rather annoyed.

'Ah, Potter, Weasley,' said Professor McGonagall, who was sitting in Professor Dumbledore's old throne-like chair with a look that plainly showed she would rather be anywhere else. 'We have been waiting for you to start.'

'Where's everyone else, Professor?' Harry asked, for he was confused. He thought that the entire school would be here, but he only saw a cluster of students sitting at the Ravenclaw dining table, all from different houses and all in the upper years. Hermione and Ron made room for himself and Ginny on the bench.

'Of course the entire school isn't participating, Potter,' said McGonagall. 'Did you read the sheet properly when you signed up?' She had a familiar, agitated look on her face, which Harry had seen many times previously.

'Signed up?' Harry was utterly confused now, and he felt Ginny edge away from him to whisper to Hermione.

Professor McGonagall sighed. 'This is the Inter-House Unity project, Harry. Did you or did you not sign up?'

'I didn't, Professor,' Harry said.

'Well, that is unfortunate,' she said, hazarding a glance at Ginny and Hermione, who grinned sheepishly. 'However, you're just going to have to sit tight while I explain what the sixteen of you will be doing for the next month.'

'A month, Professor?' whined a voice. Harry reeled- he knew that voice. But, no, it couldn't be, it just couldn't!

'Yes, a month,' said McGonagall exasperatedly. 'Malfoy, please let me continue. Everyone in the program will be staying in a large house in Hogsmeade. You will all be divided into teams of two, and you will be rooming with that person. You will compete in challenges against the other teams, one team being eliminated every four days. Eventually, there will only be one team left, and each member of that team will be rewarded with five hundred Galleons. Any questions?'

A dull silence greeted the end of her speech. Every person in the hall seemed to be weighing options. Harry thought _I wouldn't have to do any schoolwork for a week, and my friends would all be with me. _But then again, there was always the thought of him being paired with someone horrible…he looked over at the group of Slytherins. Draco Malfoy, Blaise Zabini, Millicent Bullstrode, and Pansy Parkinson. He would never choose to live with them for a month, that was for sure.

'Um…do we have to?' asked Pansy, her pug-like face contorting in disgust.

'Do we have to _what_?' said McGonagall.

'You know, the competition!' Pansy said, until Malfoy elbowed her in the ribs. 'Oh, I mean, do we have to, Professor?'

'Yes, I'm afraid you are obligated,' said McGonagall.

'Now, does anyone have any serious questions?'

'Yes, can we hear our teams?' asked Ginny, she was sitting at the edge of her seat with excitement. She grabbed Harry's hand and squeezed it, causing several people (including Michael Corner of Ravenclaw) to roll their eyes.

'Well, I thought it might be best to wait until we got to the house,' said McGonagall, but she was met with moans of protest. It was a mark of how weary she was that she dimly nodded and pulled a long sheet of paper toward her which must have the team names written on it.

'Now, on Team Red,' she began. 'There is-

A/N: Ahh! Cliffhanger! Please review, as this is my first fanfic and I want constructive criticism. Don't be afraid to criticize, I promise you won't damage my ickle thirteen year old psyche. J


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